Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast

They say “no” – all the charges are published and highlighted, and these are optional extras. If you’re prepared to travel with just a small bag and don’t mind where you sit on the plane, then the fare you see is the fare you pay.My view: it’s perfectly fair to charge people extra for the extra cost of providing services. In the UK easyJet started that in 1995 when they started charging 50p for a cup of tea. When charges for luggage started in 2006, the cost of checking in a suitcase was just a couple of pounds – reflecting the cost of handling. But now the prices are ridiculous. In a couple of weeks I’m flying from Newcastle to Dublin. The flight is £17 but if I want to bring a decent sized piece of cabin baggage on board, I will pay £20 – more than doubling the cost. Charges for seating people together are also disproportionate.This podcast is free, much like my weekly newsletter. Subscribe now to have it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No fewer than four British Airways flights turned back after take-off from London at the weekend – on one occasion flying two-thirds of the way to the destination before making a U-turn. The considerable disappointment of the passengers will be assuaged by hundreds of pounds in compensation. But what happened, and should passengers be worried? (Spoiler alert: No)This podcast is free, much like my weekly newsletter. Subscribe now to have it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm at Euston today for the latest national rail strike. I've counted that it's the 16th month since the strikes began. I spoke to Mick Whelan, general secretary of the Aslef trade union. He says that national rail workers have run out of capacity and considering that they have gone for five years without a pay rise the strikes will continue until they get what they want.This podcast is free, much like my weekly newsletter. Subscribe now to have it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I’m approaching Copenhagen airport on a driverless train, and enjoying what the Danes ever did for travellers – making journeys intuitive and smooth.This podcast is free, much like my weekly newsletter. Subscribe now to have it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're still feeling the effects of the air traffic control fiasco that crippled flights into and out of the UK on the bank holiday with little in the way of answers. After speaking with Martin Rolfe, the managing director of National Air Traffic Services (Nats), I've found out a little more - and importantly what everyone is trying to do to fix the problems people have encountered with flights since.This podcast is free, much like my weekly newsletter. Subscribe now to have it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers booked to travel to or from the UK have had their flights cancelled or delayed after the air-traffic control system was hit by a technical issue.The National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the country’s leading provider of air traffic control services, said it had applied traffic flow restrictions on Monday to maintain safety.The company announced later that the issue had been “identified and remedied”. But passengers are still facing travel chaos, with more than 1,200 flights grounded on Monday and a further 200 on Tuesday.Here’s my guide to your rights. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week will see much debate about plans to close railway station ticket offices – including the wider question about how passengers with disabilities are to be helped. Yet in Scandinavia, this has already happened: the final three ticket offices in Sweden’s three biggest cities closed during the Covid pandemic as a cost-saving measure. In Finland, too, online booking is the norm.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox.And, if you'd like to take part in the UK ticket office consultation, click this link. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bank holiday travel chaos arrived earlier than expected, with thousands of travellers stranded in various parts of Europe after large-scale cancellations – particularly on British Airways to and from Heathrow and easyJet to and from Gatwick. The cause: a combination of air-traffic control hold-ups and adverse weather. But whatever the cause of a cancelled flight, the airline has clear responsibilities towards passengers.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I predict that we're about to see the busiest holiday since 2019 this bank holiday weekend and it won't be helped by the train strikes. Over ten thousand trains are going to be out of service. Watch out if you've booked a weekend in Cornwall as you may be heavily affected. However if you're travelling through Greater Anglia you're in luck. Either way make sure you check your journey in advance.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today I am celebrating the news that not one but two airlines will be flying from Luton to Cairo this winter: easyJet and Wizz Air. With the much-delayed Grand Egyptian Museum, finally looking as though it will open its doors in the next few months, the great Egyptian capital will be more appealing than ever. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twenty years ago, the world’s only surviving supersonic airliner was on her final lap of honour. The Concorde era ended on 24 October 2003, when British Airways retired the plane on commercial grounds. It was also arguably a flying environmental disaster, burning astonishing amounts of fuel and carrying an implausibly vast noise footprint. But at the BA heritage centre near London Heathrow, I talked to Jamie Bowden – former British Airways executive, who flew on Concorde 39 times. Will we see supersonic flight again in our lifetimes?This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For today’s travel podcast, I’m on the train again, from London Bridge to Gatwick Airport – making the most of the opportunity of rail travel ahead of the next round of national strikes across England on:26 August RMT, the main rail union1 September Aslef (train drivers)2 September RMT.Thousands of trains will be cancelled every day. Check before travel.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

50 years ago after Tony and Maureen Wheeler first published Across Asia on the Cheap – the first book in the Lonely Planet guidebook series. The pandemic clobbered travel publishers harder than pretty much any other businesses – and with so much travel information available online, guidebooks are surely endangered species? Not so, according to Tom Hall, Vice President of Lonely Planet.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s A-level results day, which means some young people may be having a bit of a rethink about their future.One option for which the academic requirement is simply six GCSEs (including Maths, English and a science subject) is becoming a pilot under the new British Airways Speedbird Pilot Academy. To find out more, I’ve been talking to senior first officer Genevieve Pearmaine, who is a British Airways 777 pilot flying long-haul.For more information, visit careers.ba.com/future-pilotsThis podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After an elderly couple was hit with a £110 admin fee for failing to print out their boarding passes for a Ryanair flight, I've been sifting through all the responses – along a spectrum from "terrible airline, why does anyone fly with them?" to "you just need to follow the rules".This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last Friday morning, retired doctors Ruth and Peter Jaffe arrived at London Stansted in good time to check in for their flight FR2668 to Bergerac in southwest France. They knew that Ryanair requires passengers to check in online ahead of travel. But inadvertently, they went through the process for the inbound, not outbound journey. The couple were charged £110 for their honest mistake. My thoughts ...This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Trans-European Race from London to Istanbul is over – with all manner of surprises along the way. I’ve been talking to race director James Finnerty from Lupine Travel about the fastest, the slowest, the cheapest and the most countries visited along the way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guide to unexpected items in the billing area, after a British tourist at Lake Como in northern Italy was charged €2 extra for cutting his toasted sandwich in half. US resort fees top my list of unfair charges.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whatever disruption you might be encountering this summer, August is so much better than it has been.In today's travel podcast, I look back at stories I wrote over this corresponding weekend over the past few years and let me tell you, things could be worse. Much worse.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've been in Dover talking with the port's chief executive, Doug Bannister, who says additional staffing and expanded facilities have proved effective in keeping a lid on delays.“The numbers are turning up as we expected they would,” he said. “And the ‘dwell times’ we have had before border controls have only once reached the maximum peak we had warned people might be the case.”It comes after some motorists faced delays of 12 hours or more in July 2022 as the first big post-Covid getaway came into conflict with new post-Brexit passport rules.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Five weeks from today, two of Florida’s biggest cities will be linked by express trains. Brightline is due to extend its existing Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach route to a station close to Orlando airport. The 240-mile journey will be covered in three-and-a-half hours for a one-way fare of $79 (£62). A vision of the possible resurrection of US railroad travel ...This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

British Airways passengers on an Airbus A380 from Johannesburg to London Heathrow went on a 10-hour “flight to nowhere” when Niger’s airspace was suddenly closed late on Sunday night. Other flights between the UK and South Africa have being re-routed or diverted to take on extra fuel or have returned to their starting points as a result of the closure. Airspace over Sudan and Libya is already closed to commercial aviation. The addition of Niger means there is now a block to north-south flights across Africa stretching around 2,600 miles from western Niger to the Red Sea.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And they're off (or at least they will be at 10 am on Saturday) on the great Race Across Europe from London to Istanbul, using only public transport. It's a brilliant endeavour, but I won't be one of the 100 contestants. Here's why...This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I am in southern France, where three splendid new openings have taken place this summer, and I suggest you add them to your list. Specifically, I am on the verandah of the Hotel la Prison, perched on a high bluff next to the cathedral in Beziers. It has just opened as a boutique hotel, and beautifully done it is too. Stay here before it catches on and the prices rise. To the east, in the town of Agde, Chateau Laurens is a one-man folly: an extravagant mansion created by Emmanuel Laurens, with Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and Hollywood flourishes. And to the west, in Narbonne, the spectacular new Narbo Via houses a collection of funerary monuments rescued from the old Roman walls. All are easy to connect by rail in a matter of minutes, and I urge you to add them to your travel list.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Holidaymakers whose trips to Rhodes were cut short by wildfires have been offered a week’s free stay on the island by the Greek prime minister. After wildfires ravaged up to 15 percent of Rhodes, Kyriakos Mitsotakis told ITV Good Morning Britain: “The island is perfectly back to normal.”Around 20,000 tourists were evacuated from resorts in the southeast of the island when wildfires spread on 22 July.Many overseas visitors were placed in emergency shelters set up in schools and other public buildings, and flown back early in an airlift.Anyone whose holiday ended early is, according to the prime minister, entitled to a free week.It is not clear how the offer will work, with key questions unanswered. I have had a stab at answering them with my colleague, Charlotte Hindle.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Airports are like hospitals and prisons: you really don’t want to be there, and when you are in one you just want to get out as quickly as possible. But it’s important to keep travel etiquette in mind. With peak month for air travel beginning, here’s my essential guide.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

France has some weirdly inexpensive train tickets, for example the AVANTAGIO' FUTÉ deal in southwestern France this summer that offers flat fares from €3 upwards, well below normal levels. no need to book in advance. There are some even more extreme deals, such as just €1 for a rail journey of almost two hours from Beziers to Millau. Many €1 buses run implausible long distances too. And with driving a pain in France in July and August, they're well worth snapping up.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To round off the week I have tracked down the centre of the universe – at least according to the great surrealist Salvador Dalí. It’s Perpignan railway station in southwest France. Not every cosmologist will agree with his conclusion, but the city is a most agreeable location.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest travel news every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Very glad to be the bearer of two pieces of good tidings for airline passengers. The Gatwick ground handlers' strikes are off this weekend and almost certainly next weekend too. And Wizz Air has been told to revisit claims for recompense from passengers who were turned down.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest travel news every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unusually today, I am playing the part of the Foreign Office – to justify the wise decision not to warn against travel to Rhodes and other parts of the Mediterranean despite the wildfires that are blazing. To do so would allow people booked to travel to cancel without penalty – but it would also mean holidaymakers who are enjoying trips would need to be flown home (and would cost the travel industry a fortune). During the Covid pandemic, the Foreign Office consular advice became a laughing stock, and it has to repair the damage. Making sweeping announcements to avoid certain destinations would be another step in the wrong direction.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. You can get it delivered to your inbox every Friday by signing up here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Calls are growing for the fire-hit Greek island of Rhodes to be placed on the Foreign Office "no go" list. That would compel travel firms to cancel all holidays for an indeterminate length of time – allowing families having second thoughts about going to a destination hit by such a calamity to get a full refund. But it's not as simple as that...This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter - sign up here for it to be delivered weekly to your inbox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the peak of the summer season, wildfires have raged in Rhodes – triggering the chaotic evacuation of thousands of holidaymakers amid distressing circumstances. What lessons will be learnt and what (limited) options are available for people who have yet to travel?This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up here to receive every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many might remember the third Friday in July last year when the queues at Dover were huge for a range of reasons including Brexit. This morning I checked and the port of Dover said the queue for passport control was just twenty minutes long. However tomorrow morning travellers are predicted to be stuck waiting at the port for two and a half hours. So I'll keep my eyes on what happens next with the port as well as how the trains and airports are doing this weekend during the great getaway.This podcast is free, just like my newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered to your inbox every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With extreme heat across much of southern Europe, travellers are looking for alternatives. I’ve been in western Germany’s Ruhr region, talking to Charles Wilson – travel industry veteran and outgoing Sales Manager UK & Ireland for the German National Tourist Office.This podcast is free, just like my newsletter. Subscribe here to have it delivered to your inbox every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm back with the pickets at London Euston station on the first day of the latest round of rail strikes. More than half of trains in England have been wiped out as up to 20,000 members of the RMT union walk out in the long and bitter dispute over pay, jobs and conditions. How and when will it end? I wish I knew.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe now to get it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 As the busiest summer getaway since 2019 begins, travellers to southern Europe are experiencing extreme heat. An area of high pressure appears to have settled over the Med with little sign of abating. What are your rights if this looks too hot to handle – and will it change our travel habits?This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to receive every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Could the package holiday be under threat? That's the claim from Paul Charles, travel industry veteran and chief executive of the PC Agency. He tells me travellers are worried about committing to package holidays with the cost-of-living crisis.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Get it delivered to your inbox every Friday by subscribing here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rail industrial action resumes this week in England and here I am explaining what's happening. Monday-Saturday: The overtime ban by train drivers belonging to Aslef will have an impact on London commuter routes (inc Gatwick Express). While on Thursday, Saturday: RMT national strikes, with thousands of trains cancellations.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter, which you can get by subscribing here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm back at Gatwick Airport today to talk about the strikes that are being called for later this month, and in early August. Why are they happening? Could they be called off? Who's threatening to strike, and how could it affect my travel? All these questions are answered, so listen along to find out more. This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm at lovely Gatwick airport, looking at the thorny subject of drop-off charges. Are they a drop-off rip-off? Gatwick and Heathrow both emerged from the Covid pandemic with charges for dropping passengers off at the terminals, and the RAC says that many airports have raised their charges by more than inflation this year.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I have been contacted by some villains who are trying to extract some cash from desperate easyjet passengers and here's how it works at the moment. As you will know, 180,000 passengers journeys have been canceled by easyjet. And there's a great deal of pressure people trying to contact the airline and find out what their rights are, get compensation, rebook on sensible flights on other airlines, all that stuff. And so what the scammers do is really very straightforward, appallingly easy.I take you through my experience to show you how to not fall foul.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today I'm covering some of the fall-out from the easyJet decision to cancel 1,700 flights over the summer – and in particular stressing your rights if your flight is cancelled. For example, a listener called Jane found her Gatwick-Barcelona trip moved to a Luton-Barcelona departure – and lost a day of her holiday at the end. I advised her to demand easyJet buys perfectly good tickets on rival Vueling, as it is legally required to do. I've contacted the Civil Aviation Authority about some of the communications from easyJet and am looking forward to the CAA reply ...This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up now to receive it every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After weeks of last-minute cancellations to and from London Gatwick airport, easyJet has pre-emptively axed 1,700 further departures over the summer. Britain’s biggest budget airline has taken the drastic action in a bid to get its schedule back on track and to reduce the number of flights that get cancelled while passengers are waiting at the gate. The airline blames severe air-traffic control congestion across Europe for its problems. Most passengers have been notified and rebooked on other easyJet flights, but around 9,000 passengers may have to find seats on other airlines.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up now to receive it every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More air-traffic control misery? So say some reports today. Staff at Eurocontrol – the omniscient organisation at the heart of Europe's skies – are threatening to strike. Historically the trade union involved, the Union Syndicale Bruxelles , has been about as unmilitant as it is possible to be. My interpretation is that it's more of a cry for help by overstretched staff in a difficult summer, and I believe some kind of settlement will be reached – although that could conceivably include capping the number of flights. But it's against a background of air-traffic control stress that will cause problems through the summer.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up now to receive every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

London Gatwick, the UK's second-busiest airport, has applied for permission to bring its standby runway into permanent use. Capacity could increase by 37% and be only one-fifth short of current Heathrow movement numbers. But environmental campaigners are outraged ...This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the biggest upheaval in the railway industry for a generation, the vast majority of railway stations in England will be left without ticket offices: that is the plan from the major train operators, with the blessing of government ministers.But disability campaigners claim the scheme will prevent disabled people from using the rail network entirely, while the boss of the biggest rail union insists it will “create the conditions for a muggers’ paradise on the railways”.Here's my assessment.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a few days travelling round by train, I can say it's not just British railway that has its problems. In France, I've found a bewildering array of rules and ticketing related barriers that means getting around on the various different services isn't as easy as it could be. Let me explain...This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Subscribe to it here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over a year on from the start of the first national rail strikes since the 1980s, the dispute over pay, jobs and working conditions appears as intractable as ever. July sees the resumption of industrial action aimed at more than a dozen train operators by both main rail unions.The unions say their members have not had a pay rise for four years and are demanding a decent, no-strings award that takes into account the high level of inflation.Train operators and ministers – who must sign off any deal – say reforms are essential following the collapse of rail revenue, which they say is 30 per cent lower than before the Covid pandemic.The train drivers’ union, Aslef, is mounting “action short of a strike” in the shape of an overtime ban from 3 to 8 July inclusive. Hundreds of trains are being cancelled each day. Later in July – on 20, 22 and 29 – the RMT will be walking out again.This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up here to receive it every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What could possibly go wrong? From last-minute flight cancellations (or missing your flight) to overbooked hotels and empty car-rental lots, your rights when it all goes Tango Uniform.This podcast is free, like my weekly newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Travel agents: High Street or online? I receive more complaints about online travel agents (OTAs) than any other part of the industry. So why would anyone ever book with them, and what are the potential pitfalls if you do?This podcast is free, as is my weekly newsletter. Sign up here to receive every Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.